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Books, Myths, Love, & More Books

Usually, when I read books, this is how they end up. Highlighted, marked up, and posted-notes hanging out of them all over. It’s something I picked up doing in high school for obvious reasons and it helped in college a great deal since I had to read a lot of nonfiction and gather a lot of research information. Now? I just do it out of impulse. I find it difficult not to, it’s why I like actual books over e-books.

My Nook allows me to highlight and makes notes but it’s very annoying and doesn’t like to highlight when I tell it to. That aside, do you want to hear a sweet creation myth from New Zealand? I think it was my favorite.

There was no space for anything in the world, since Father Rangi (the sky) and Mother Papa (the earth) were always together. Their children, the young gods, wanted to make room for themselves and decided to push the two apart. Tane-mahuta, the gentle god of the forests, decided to push the earth and sky apart by standing on his head to push the earth and sky apart by standing on his head and pushing up with his legs, something like the way a tree grows. His shoulders touched Papa and his feet touched Rangi and slowly he pushed them apart. Trees still separate the earth and sky in the same way.

The parts of the gods screamed and groaned as they were pushed apart. But as the space between them enlarged, light and dark were separated. Now there was room for gods, for tall trees to grow, and for humans and animals to flourish.

Rangi is still saddened to be separate from Papa, and his tears form the dew every morning and sometimes even take the form of rain.

Most creation myths, that I read about, were just… I don’t know, not equal to that. That one ends with something sweet. It actually got me to say ‘aw’, which doesn’t often happen. I really liked that. Most of the posted notes in the book are filled with ideas for my WIP. Reading always helps me get ideas, not usually directly (like taking ideas from what I’m reading) but just because it gets my brain working in the right way.

I had another good reading experience recently. I read the Hunger Games trilogy this past week, it was so good! I was surprised, I knew it was popular and people kept telling me to read it but usually I hate dystopian society things. It was such a wonderful emotional roller coaster and I did like Kantiss a great deal. So if you haven’t read the Hunger Games yet, you should. It’s wasn’t at all what I was expecting.

So to sum it up read: Parallel Myths by J.F. Bierlein, 100 Characters from Classical Mythology by Malcolm Day, and the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. All these books will help get the inspirational juices start flowing in your head.